Naming a beer, does it matter?

[Pyg]

I have never been able to come up with a witty name for a beer.
So I settled on inexpensive labels, Usually with the beer style (i.e.atmeal stout) and then list the ingredients.
I do this because I feel the need to use up space on the label, and educate the BMC'ers to what they are drinking.
However handing out another bottle of "Pyg's cream ale" gets dull.

The fact that I have an inability to come up with some name for the beer just leads me to believe that my decision not to enter the field of advertising and marketing, was a good choice.

So out of curiosity does anyone name their beers (i.e.:sculpin, hop mania, backwoods bastard) or just call it "bob's IPA"?

Do you keep the specific name for the specific recipe or only the style?
Where do you come up with the name? Part of me thinks it is just beer call it what it is.
The other part wants to try and be creative!
Below are the only name I came up with, followed by what the rest look like.
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1456957165.423302.jpgView attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1456957194.567578.jpg

 

[lumpher]

I try to get creative. The 4 I have on tap right now are named Dunkelweizen, Smoked Robust Porter, American Orange Wheat, and Smoked Vanilla Robust Porter. Takes creativity to use caps on all the words :rockin:

 

[Sailingeric]

I like playing with model trains and my kegerator is in my garage with my trains so I try to name everything with a train themed name. Such names have been Steam Train Stout, Roundhouse Saison, Night Train Dark Ale, Tahachapi Pale Ale and Box Car Blonde Ale, just to name a few

 

[Esiole]

I generally come up with names for what I put on tap in my house, because I use a small chalkboard to label the taps with name, style, and ABV. Those three things are usually all my friends/family care about what they are drinking.

I usually come up with some cheesy pun that relates back to the beer itself. For examply, right now i have a Hefe on tap that had a very high OG and as such, is about 8% abv. The name of that one is Hefe-handed. Another beer I made was the Zombie Dust clone recipe on this website, and so for that one I named it "Undead Powder."

 

[GHBWNY]

I have never been able to come up with a witty name for a beer. ...So out of curiosity does anyone name their beers...(?)

Yeah. On occasion, I'll come up with a name, but better yet, for each brew about 12 people on my "Brewsletter" mailing list are given the opportunity to enter a "Name the Beer" Contest. I describe the style, the tradition it comes from and the notable ingredients, and from there they submit clever entries which are tossed into a hat and a winner is picked. The winner gets an actual prize (some HB of course) and a dinner out somewhere. It's a lot of fun and it keeps the interest in HB strong in our circle of family and friends.

 

[slym2none]

I named most all of them so far, whether they received labels or not. Recently, I changed the name of my home-brewery to Weird Alice Brewing, so hopefully I can run some "Through The Looking Glass" puns/names for a while, or at least other fairy tales. My first two AG IPAs, using some experimental hops in the boil, are going to be named Tweedle-Dee & Tweedle-Dum. The rye red DIPA might just be Little Red Ryeding Hood.

Each bottle, on the label, already says "Drink Me"... I'll have to come up with something clever to name "Eat Me" - maybe an oatmeal porter or stout.

 

[kev211]

I always name mine. Mine are all based on experiences from camping trips with my family when growing up. Makes it more personal IMO and usually sparks a conversation when people come over see my tap chalk board with "No Umping or Iving Pale Ale" (named after a sign on a bridge in Yosemite in which someone scratched off the J and D respectively) or "Bear Chaser Black IPA" (named after the countless times we ran TO the banging pots and pans instead of AWAY to try and find a bear).

I also think that its part of the creative process in brewing. I get to design and make my own beer, might as well name it and make it mine! But thats just my opinion, its your brewing operation. Its your decision. I know some breweries dont even "name" their beers other than "Mosaic IPA" or "Nelson IPA"

 

[Mismost]

I know how you feel. You feel kinda stupid! I felt the same way. I tried to get a friend who is an artist to help me out...that didn't work out...too much back and forth...add this, dump that, fix this part. BUT...she did get ticked off and spent about 30 minutes showing me how to use a simple program...free from Avery. The first thing you gotta fix is your mind, you don't mind doing this label stuff and then it gets better.

I name mine, I think it is just another fun part of the hobby. I name them after local spots or landmarks. There was a Polly Peak Porter, a Pipe Creek Pilsner, a Bandera Brown Ale...it just rings a bell to the folks that live around here.

Labels are the fun part now...I always put in something about magic bottles, return them clean and they fill back up...or, the beer was free, but I charge for bottles. Finding clip art or taking pictures for the labels is a big part of the game to me.

My last wine label had a painting of a red horse....did not have anything to do with the wine itself, I just liked the picture, so I used it. Remember, this is your beer, your label, you can do anything you want to....this is 'Merica, land of the free! If anybody gripes about it....they get to design the next label for you! That might be fun too!

BTW...I like your labels, great place to start, you're doing fine.

 

[NoIguanaForZ]

I've been naming the ones that are "mine" in a sense beyond brewing them. If I've used a recipe kit with tweaks I'll tend to use the recipe name; if the result is a bit distinct from the style the kit had meant to produce, I'll reference that (IE, my "Irish Auburn" currently carbonating - my 6 gallon carboy was occupied, so I used the 5 gallon and everything got a bit more concentrated including color). The exception was the oatmeal stout, adapted from an extract kit which I had the LHBS put together as an all-grain version for me and with the mash approach and hop schedule pretty much all mine, which I dubbed "Oatfeast" upon submitting it for a competition (used the 5 gallon fermenter for that, too, so it came out "more than a meal").

If I create a recipe nearly from scratch I'll try to think of a clever name; I dubbed the first all-original recipe I brewed "Edge of the Map," for instance...

 

[GHBWNY]

I'll have to come up with something clever to name "Eat Me" - maybe an oatmeal porter or stout.

Yeah, maybe a breakfast stout made with a hint of double chocolate, oatmeal, french toast, coffee, cinnamon-raisin scone, eggs over easy, bacon and homefries. Or something.

 

[mongoose33]

The only name I've come up with was suggested by a friend.

I'm trying to clone the old Potosi Cave Ale recipe, the one before they changed it last summer and screwed it up.

His suggestion? "Spelunker Special." Nice alliteration, has the Cave element included, and I even found a possible image for the label:



All I have left to do is get the clone recipe down. I'm not far away but more experimenting must be done!

 

[AsgardNorth]

I'm horrible, I will not even brew a beer unless I have a name and label done for it. Sometimes the name absolutely sucks, but I have hit some homeruns with names that I just love!

 

[slym2none]

Yeah, maybe a breakfast stout made with a hint of double chocolate, oatmeal, french toast, coffee, cinnamon-raisin scone, eggs over easy, bacon and homefries. Or something.

Or maybe not.

 

[oceanic_brew]

I just made a blueberry hef that I named Blue Hefner...

The miss loves it

They can't all be zingers though

 

[NoIguanaForZ]

I'll have to come up with something clever to name "Eat Me" - maybe an oatmeal porter or stout.

A blonde ale?

 

[ChelisHubby]

THe repeat brews that I like get names.

 

[didinho]

I started naming and labeling beers a couple of years ago, after ten years homebrewing.
just my recipes, and the good ones or for special occasion.
like 'Achill's Island' for my Irish stout (after an holiday with my wife), 'Catpiss Bitter' for a Simcoe pale ale after our cat passed away, 'Helles Belles'...
I just try to be creative for some special creation

 

[Billy-Klubb]

The only name I've come up with was suggested by a friend.

I'm trying to clone the old Potosi Cave Ale recipe, the one before they changed it last summer and screwed it up.

His suggestion? "Spelunker Special." Nice alliteration, has the Cave element included, and I even found a possible image for the label:

View attachment 341239

All I have left to do is get the clone recipe down. I'm not far away but more experimenting must be done!

we should do a collaboration beer. I have an Imperial Stout w/ coffee & coco nibs I called Coal Miner's Butt Sweat.

 

[ChelisHubby]

With that name you might get the keg to yourself except for a couple of gay friends!

 

[stella_tigre]

My Fat Tire Clones got renamed in an instance of pre-coffee Spoonerism to Flat Tire Crones. Usually also name for a significant occurrence the day pitched or bottled, so the last one, bottled 7 Dec is the Infamous Flat Tire Crone...

 

[Aristotelian]

I want to remember what I am drinking, so I just go with the style (which usually signals the grain bill and yeast) and a few key identifiers (usually the dominant hop). Azacca Blonde, Citra Pale Ale, Golding ESB, etc.

 

[WestMichBrewer]

My recipes in Brewers Friend are basically just something like "English Bitters" or "My IPA II" - just a style designation with maybe an iteration number.
No fancy names until perhaps I come up with a recipe my own worthy of naming (hasn't happened yet).
No labels - just mark the cap with a Sharpie so I know whats in it.

 

[m00ps]

I name every one of my beers. I went through all the trouble of conceiving, brewing, fermenting, and patiently waiting. It going to get a better name than "all citra IPA" or "oatmeal stout".

The names all mean something to me, but wont really make sense to others. But the names are usually memorable. I Dont think you need to put too much thought into it for it to be a good name. Recent ones:
Wild Fellers - 100% brett ale
Inertia Creeps - 100% brett black ale
Dino Skin - Saison
Winnie the Pale Ale
Bad News Worse News - Saison
What Shes Having - Dark English Mild
Falcon Punch - Amber ale
Spaceboots - Black IPA
Sunny D - DIPA
Tragedy + Time - sour
Brixomytosis - sour
Sounds like Slinkys - Trippel
Spongebath - Dubbel
Anoxic dain bramage - brett saison
Pun Intended - Gose
Lazy Eye - Porter
Accident Prone - saison
Whitest beer alive - white IPA
Counting Scars - saison
Collapse/Collide - saison
All that Glitters - saison
Literally Figurative - sour IPA
Bastard Spawn - Belgian Strong Dark
Error 404 - Oude Bruin

 

[Rhetorik]

Sometimes I just name them boringly such as "IPA II", but I also like to use puns.

- The Malt Tease Flagon
- Blonde with the Wind
- Caskablanca
- etc

 

[A2HB]

My OPINION and this is just me, if you do the opposite then more power to you, I feel that naming my beers is really pretentious. Seeing as how only myself and a few other people will be drinking what I've brewed, I don't really see a point in naming what is a limited edition batch of whatever it was I made. I don't even bother de-labeling my bottles, I just put my brew into the old two hearteds and huma lupa's I have and go from there.

One day if I make an original recipe that is just really freaking awesome to the point that I feel like I have to keep brewing it for the rest of my life I might make a name, but until that time I will continue to just use whatever hops and the the style as my name of choice for my beers

 

[Billy-Klubb]

I'm pretentious. I take joy in giving some of my beers goofy names because I think it's funny. those that are like minded: we should start a club. Klubb's Pretentious Club of Amusing Home Brew Names That May Make Us Chuckle But Not Everyone Else That Is Not Part of The Klubb's Pretentious Club of Amusing Home Brew Names That May Make Us Chuckle But Not Everyone Else. we should meet every sixth Tuesday of months that might sound amusing in a haiku.

 

[kev211]

I'm pretentious. I take joy in giving some of my beers goofy names because I think it's funny. those that are like minded: we should start a club. Klubb's Pretentious Club of Amusing Home Brew Names That May Make Us Chuckle But Not Everyone Else That Is Not Part of The Klubb's Pretentious Club of Amusing Home Brew Names That May Make Us Chuckle But Not Everyone Else. we should meet every sixth Tuesday of months that might sound amusing in a haiku.

Im in. But can we maybe use an acronym for the club name? It may be cumbersome fitting that on the official t-shirts.

 

[Billy-Klubb]

Im in. But can we maybe use an acronym for the club name? It may be cumbersome fitting that on the official t-shirts.

I was thinking of wearing one of them big signs like people do to advertise the business they own or work at to drum up more business for the employers and employees of said businesses that they are advertising for with the big signs that they are wearing for advertisement.:rockin:

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

This one -- the brew day was the day of the blizzard, the viral photo of the messed up sign, the snow I put in the boil and used in the bath to chill the wort... I just had to.

 

[slym2none]

Brews that either I have changed somehow & re-named from recipes, or just didn't have a name to start with:

One Hellluva IPA
Duroracat RIS
Oktoberbeast Marzen Festbier
Down The Rabbit Hole
Weird Alice Rye PA
Tweedle-Dee IPA
Tweedle-Dum IPA

Next up, Little Red Ryeding Hood DIPA.

Pretentious as #$%@.

 

[MuddyCreek]

Well, I HAVE to name the beer, obviously. But even when I was making it at home I enjoyed coming up with names. That was a good part of the fun.

Some notable ones.

Lawnmower: from an epic failure. I used actual lawn clippings in the latter part of the boil. Never do this. EVER.

Drunk Cousin: He was the only guy who would drink this Scotch Ale made with some brown sugar that didn't attenuate. El Grosso supremo...

8 Seconds: Not named after the rodeo time requirement, but the amount of time you have to get a cat outdoors after you hear the "gack" sound it makes on your bed when it's spitting out a hairball.

Those are just a few of the homebrew names that I used over the years for beers that weren't all that amazing. We have quite a few really good names for beers that we actually have in production either currently or upcoming.

The story is what it's all about folks.

 

[max384]

I'm not really all that creative. My wife is WAY better at coming up with names, and she usually names the beers, although my current lineup is all named by me, I think.

On tap:
1) Wedding bliss hefe (named after my wife and I got into a huge fight about wedding stuff. Every time I brew this one, the name sticks.)
2) Blizzard IPA (brewed in a blizzard this year that left us with 2 feet of snow. We got about 10" in the time it took to brew this one)
3)Bleach blonde ale (because it's the lightest beer I brew)
4) Oatmeal stout (yeah, not so creative...)

 

[lazysunday]

I do a mix of name and style. For example my last brew was a red using local ingredients so I named it Pacific NorthRed (I have another brewed with a pinecone in the mash called Redwoods).

 

[xandersaml]

Yeah, maybe a breakfast stout made with a hint of double chocolate, oatmeal, french toast, coffee, cinnamon-raisin scone, eggs over easy, bacon and homefries. Or something.

Watch out; someone will throw a TACO in there!

 

[iijakii]

 

[NoIguanaForZ]

Im in. But can we maybe use an acronym for the club name? It may be cumbersome fitting that on the official t-shirts.

The Creative And Notable Nomenclature In Brewing And Labeling Society?

 

[ChasinABuzz]

I'm lucky in the fact that one of my best friends not only shares my same twisted sense of humor, but is basically a giant version of me in every other way as well. He helps me name all my beers and he doesn't eve drink lol. Being a photographer/photojournalist by trade, the graphic design part is easier for me than the actual making of the beer in many ways interestingly, but I can always count on him for some obscure fishing or standup comedy quote to give me an idea. Our most recent collaborations have included "Spooled IPA", "Puppy Drum Pale Ale", "Jimmy Don't Play Dat RyePA" (Jimmy as in a crab, get it? Lol) and my personal favorite, "Ermahgerd Wertermerlern! Wheat" lol.

It's all about making it fun, don't feel pressured to find witty names, maybe even just do what I do and keep some scratch paper or your phone nearby at work and jot ideas down as they come to you. A legendary photojournalist once told me when I was first getting into sports photojournalism "don't feel like you have to fit to what they all see as "creativity". Make that creativity fit to you." Best advice I ever got. Took my work to a new stratosphere.

 

[Pyg]

I was just about to hit Print on my labels at work but hesitated.
I then changed 1/2 the labels from "Cream ale" to "Done with the Lawn" ale.
I had a few other names that got shot down by SWMBO
"Lawn boy"
"Can of corn"
"Not your uncles cream ale"- my uncle drinks a lot of Genny cream ale!

My current Dilemma is that my people I know are BMC'ers, so by listing ingredients I try to educate them on what is actually in beer.
Someone actuall asked me what a hop was, with a beer in their hand.
But I fear that putting ingredients will dissuade people from drinking it.
Where is my neighbor who is an IPA guy won't drink a cream ale,
So I guess just by calling it "ale" might fool them all into drinking it.
Then again, maybe I should taking a more for me approach.
Anyway my 2 labels:
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1457099672.790106.jpg

 

[grizzly2378]

After spending a couple of years trying to come up with witty, creative names for my homebrew, I finally just "gave up" and decided that I would start naming all of my brews after Pearl Jam songs. For the labels, I take a snippet of the lyrics for that particular song and put them on there. Sometimes the names have something somewhat remotely to do with the beer (like, "Red Mosquito" for an Irish Red and "Black" for a porter), but usually they're just songs/lyrics that I like. Pearl Jam has a ton of songs, so I've got beer names for the foreseeable future. Here's a couple of examples from the last two beers I've bottled, an Irish Red and a Saison Brett. (And, yes, I screwed up the brew date on the Irish Red and forgot to change the year....I didn't actually wait a full year to bottle it.)

 

[GHBWNY]

...I then changed 1/2 the labels from "Cream ale" to "Done with the Lawn" ale.

Good one, but that infers you're supposed to wait until you're done with the lawn. Other lawn-associated possibilities not limited to post-lawn only:


"Lawn Time Coming"

"Shocks Of Grass"

"Hop On Mower"

"Greener Pastures"

"Made The Cut"

"In The Bag"

"Three-Inch Buzz"

"Ride 'Em Carboy"


I digress...